I always used to say Happy Christmas as well. I was brought up in a family aetheists, but made to partake in the religious stuff at school just so I would'nt stick out (some day I'll show you a pic of me in my First Holy Communion outfit). Southern Ireland when I was growing up was full of "post-Catholics" and pretend Catholics and the odd aetheist and of course the genuine Catholics and if you were of another religion you were treated like an alien. I remember the one Mormon girl in school, what aan awful time she got! Anyway, despite this everyone celebrated Christmas insofar as turkey, presents, lights and all that goes. I never copped that the c-r-i-s-t at the start of the word meant Christ back in those days.
When I was older I started writing it as xmas. For some reason this year I've been feeling that "Xmas" is a bit crude. I'm not worried that it's insulting the other spelling or anything! It's my (and yours) holiday as much as anyones elses after all!
Nowadays, I long for something similar to "Happy Holidays" as well. We have no such phrase though, and anyone other than an American saying that phrase would sound preposterous (plus it would be really obvious that you were making an anti-religious point, I want a subtle non-denominational happy holidays phrase to creep in!)
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Date: 2006-12-07 03:42 pm (UTC)I always used to say Happy Christmas as well. I was brought up in a family aetheists, but made to partake in the religious stuff at school just so I would'nt stick out (some day I'll show you a pic of me in my First Holy Communion outfit). Southern Ireland when I was growing up was full of "post-Catholics" and pretend Catholics and the odd aetheist and of course the genuine Catholics and if you were of another religion you were treated like an alien. I remember the one Mormon girl in school, what aan awful time she got! Anyway, despite this everyone celebrated Christmas insofar as turkey, presents, lights and all that goes. I never copped that the c-r-i-s-t at the start of the word meant Christ back in those days.
When I was older I started writing it as xmas. For some reason this year I've been feeling that "Xmas" is a bit crude. I'm not worried that it's insulting the other spelling or anything! It's my (and yours) holiday as much as anyones elses after all!
Nowadays, I long for something similar to "Happy Holidays" as well. We have no such phrase though, and anyone other than an American saying that phrase would sound preposterous (plus it would be really obvious that you were making an anti-religious point, I want a subtle non-denominational happy holidays phrase to creep in!)